Archive for July, 2018

Chronic nasal congestion can affect your daily life however, there are effective treatment options available.

Practically everyone has had to deal with a stuffy nose or nasal congestion as it is referred to medically, at various times throughout their life, and it’s never very pleasant. If it’s severe enough, it can make you feel like you can’t breathe through your nose, and must take in air through your mouth instead.

A stuffy nose can also make it difficult to get to sleep at night, it can trigger headaches, and if it persists long enough, it can leave you physically drained and fatigued from having to deal with it. Since the symptoms associated with nasal congestion can be fairly severe, it’s worthwhile to try and understand their causes, with an eye toward prevention, or at least remediation of the worst symptoms.

Causes of Nasal Congestion

Sometimes the delicate tissues inside your nose and the blood vessels which surround them can become swollen with excessive levels of fluid, and that’s the stuffy feeling people experience which feels like the nose is being blocked. Although there can be a discharge of fluid when this happens, a runny nose does not always accompany the stuffy sensation. Some of the most common causes for the stuffy nose feeling are the following:

excessive usage of decongestants

changes in hormone levels

excessively dry air

viruses and infections such as sinusitis, flu, and colds

various kinds of allergies

external irritants such as the smoke from tobacco, or from other airborne pollutants.

There are some other potential causes of runny noses which are less common, but still very possible:

hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism

some kind of foreign agent lodged in the nose

swollen adenoids

some kind of structural blockage as from a tumor deviated septum or polyps

when the affected persons are small children or babies, try using a bulb syringe to extract any nasal secretions.

Saline solution can be administered through the nose with a specialized spray bottle.

When is Medical Attention Necessary?

While home remedies can be at least somewhat effective, there are times where they simply won’t do the job, and it becomes necessary to seek medical attention. If the nasal congestion condition persists for more than 10 days or if it becomes chronic, that’s a sign that home remedies are going to be insufficient for effecting a cure.

That’s when it’s time to call your doctor and make an appointment to have your nasal congestion examined, to determine the real cause of the problem and get some proper relief. There are other times when you shouldn’t wait for 10 days to elapse but should call your doctor right away because more pressing symptoms appear, and the level of urgency is increased.

Some of those situations include the following:

for babies, when a stuffy nose is observed, and he/she refuses to nurse

there is a recurring discharge of clear material following some kind of head trauma or injury

when you observe blood in a nasal discharge

your stuffy nose is accompanied by a high fever

nasal discharge has a greenish or yellowish color and is accompanied by either a fever or severe sinus pains.

Treatments for Nasal Congestion

Some of the best treatments for nasal congestion are available over-the-counter without a prescription from your physician. Decongestants help to diminish the swelling and nasal passages, and they can ease that sensation of sinus pressure and stuffiness. There are a great many of these available over-the-counter, and whichever one you choose, you should carefully follow all directions printed on the label. You shouldn’t use an oral decongestant for longer than a week unless you have consulted with your doctor about it. Nasal decongestants should not be used for longer than three days, or they may end up contributing to your congestion instead of diminishing it. If you have any other health problems besides your nasal congestion, you should check with your doctor about the advisability of taking a decongestant.

Antihistamines are another effective medical tool for combating nasal congestion, particularly if your nasal congestion is due to an allergy. By controlling the allergy, all other symptoms should be relieved to some extent. When you go shopping for an antihistamine, look for one which relieves sneezing and sniffling, and which includes a decongestant to manage sinus pressure and the congestion itself. Some multi-symptom cold medications contain antihistamines to relieve the runny nose part of your problem.

If you are bothered by difficulty sleeping, it might be a good choice to purchase a night-time cold medicine, because these can help manage the symptoms effectively, so that you can get a good night’s sleep.

A third option for relief of symptoms surrounding nasal congestion is a pain reliever. These won’t do anything to help clear up congestion, but they can definitely diminish pains which are associated with sinus pressure. As with both decongestants and antihistamines, you should carefully read the printed instructions on the label before using.

A rupture of the eardrum, or tympanic membrane, can occur suddenly and requires immediate attention from a physician.

When you experience a ruptured eardrum, it’s usually something that happens very suddenly, and you feel a very sharp pain in your ear for a short time. It can also happen that you have an earache for some period of time which suddenly goes away. While these are the two most common indicators are ruptured eardrum, it’s also possible that you don’t have any warning signal at all.

However, if you do experience a ruptured eardrum (sometimes also referred to as a tympanic membrane perforation or a perforated eardrum), it can cause some fairly serious complications. For instance, you could experience some degree of hearing loss, and you could also be subject to more frequent middle ear infections. In some cases, when you’ve sustained a ruptured eardrum it will be necessary to undergo surgery to repair it, although generally speaking if you take steps to protect your ruptured eardrum, it will self-heal within a matter of a few months.

What is a Ruptured Eardrum?

When you talk about a ruptured eardrum, what really happens is that there is some kind of a tear in the membrane between the inner ear and the outer ear. This tympanic membrane, as it is referred to, is comprised of tissue which is very similar to the skin covering your entire body.

The first main function of your eardrum is to detect vibrating soundwaves and to convert those vibrations into impulses which are relayed to the brain as sound. The eardrum also serves as a protective barrier for the middle ear, keeping out foreign objects and water. The natural state of the middle ear is to be sterile, but when the eardrum becomes ruptured it’s possible for tiny debris and bacteria to penetrate the middle ear, and cause an infection which is known as otitis media.

Causes of Ruptured Eardrums

While there are a great number of things which can cause an eardrum to be ruptured, the most common single cause is an infection of the ear. Once the middle ear becomes infected, it allows pressure to build up, and that will press against the eardrum until the pressure becomes so strong that it eventually perforates the eardrum. When this happens, a person might feel the sudden disappearance of pain and pressure which has been there for a long period of time. Along with that sudden stoppage of pain and pressure, there is usually also some draining of pus from the ear to provide a second indication that a rupture has occurred.

The second most common cause of a ruptured eardrum is when someone pokes it with a foreign object. This happens frequently when a person tries to clean out the ear with a cotton swab or a bobby pin, in an attempt to remove wax build-up from inside the ear. Children are generally completely unaware of the eardrum itself, and will sometimes insert objects like a stick or some other long object into their ears, simply out of curiosity.

Symptoms of a Ruptured Eardrum

Many people don’t notice any symptoms at all when their eardrum has been ruptured, and only consult their family doctor after several days have elapsed, with a general feeling of pain or pressure in their ear. If you’re really paying attention, you might notice that when you blow your nose, you can hear air coming out the ear. By blowing your nose, you force air to rise up and fill in the area of the middle ear, thus causing the eardrum to expand outward. When the eardrum has been perforated though, the air simply rushes out, sometimes causing a sound which is noticed by people nearby.

If you suspect that your eardrum has ruptured, consult with a physician immediately for a full diagnosis and treatment recommendation.

Diagnosis of a Ruptured Eardrum

If you mention to your family doctor that you have experienced any of the symptoms described above, he/she will generally conduct an otoscopic exam. This type of examination uses an instrument with a light to closely inspect the inside of the ear. In most cases, any tear to the eardrum will be visible during this inspection, unless there is too much wax or drainage for the doctor to see clearly.

In this case, the doctor will have to gently clean out the affected ear before conducting the otoscopic exam. As part of your examination, the doctor may also conduct various hearing tests to determine how much impact the ruptured eardrum has on your hearing. This could involve in audiology test or a tuning fork test, both of which can help to identify the specific level of hearing loss in a patient. In most cases, any hearing loss is temporary and will be overcome when the eardrum heals on its own.

Treatment for a Ruptured Eardrum

For the most part, no specific treatments are called for when an eardrum has been ruptured since the natural healing process will restore the membrane within about three months. In some cases though, your doctor may prescribe a round of antibiotics to help clear up any existing infections. When a patient is experiencing significant pain as a result of the ruptured eardrum, that pain can be treated by over-the-counter drugs such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen.